ScSII - reporting as I play

[PetrusOctavianus]

I thought I'd just report things that don't seem right as I play.

 

CHAPTER 1:

 

As mentioned Duergar don't call for help.

 

Frennedan, if he really is a Doppleganger, don't have any of the Doppleganger abilities from ScS1.

 

The Escaped Clone only buffs after killing the Assassin and noticing the party, assuming that her casting of Stoneskin is a buff.

 

 

Don't know if this is ScSII or not, but there are three Shadow Thieves fighting the vampire Ulvaryl. The Assassin is fighting, but the Shadow Thief Archer and the Shadow Thief Battlemage just stands there, and none of the leave any loot.

[PetrusOctavianus]

CHAPTER 2:

 

Thieves are extremely nasty, with their invisibility potions and backstabs, and my party with no way to Dispel the invisibility yet. One got a critical on Nalia and chuncked her. :-(

 

 

After going from the Docks to the Promenade at night we stumble upon the vampire Hareishan and three Shadow Thieves fighting. We are allied with them and quickly realize they have no chance so we attack. After H turns read, she totally ignores the Thieves and the Amnish soldiers beating on her, even when surrounded. Dunno if this is intended since they can't hurt her anyway, but it makes for a chaotic battle with my main quaffing a Speed Potion and running around in circles, while Anomen hits her with Spiritual Hammers and Jaheira and a summond Nymph hits her with Call Lightning and Insect Swarm, eventually killing her.

 

 

Ettercaps don't call or react to calls for help, but Spiders do.

Same problem with the Mutated Gibberlings under the Cult of the Unseeing Eye.

Trolls and Saugahin (sp?) don't communicate very well with each other either.

 

 

Gauths are extremely nasty, but not very bright. I can spam them with Fireballs from outside their vision without them moving.

Best tactic I've found against Gauths is to use Viconia. Holy Power, Potion of Speed, Potion of 50% Magic Res and they can't touch her. Against Beholder I found it best to use a Berserker, using Berserk and protected with Death Ward.

 

 

Marketh (sp?), the guy golding Haer Dalis was very weak. Did not use any Contingency or Spell Trigger and didn't even try to cast a spell, but wandered around.

 

 

Rijeck and the other creature involved in the Skinner murder quest that you encounter in Trademeet are very weak. When meeting him in the Tanner shop I thought he was a high level mage since he could teleport away, but in Trademeet he's just a commoner worth 14 XP. Maybe beef them up?

[PetrusOctavianus]

Almost finished with Chapter 2 and except for the Better Calls for Help not working as well as it did in ScC there's not much to criticise.

I'm only using the "Smarter Mages and Priests - never cast short-duration spells instantly at start of combat" component, so the game is not as brutal as it would have been if all mages start with Mirror and Globe.

[PetrusOctavianus]

CHAPTER 3

 

I found that the component "Party's items are taken from them in Spellhold: v11" was just too frustrating, especially since you encounter such monsters as Rhuk, Pit Fiend and Lich.

What happens with the items afterwards if I replace Jan with Imoen? Will Jan's items still be available later?

[DavidW]

CHAPTER 3

 

I found that the component "Party's items are taken from them in Spellhold: v11" was just too frustrating, especially since you encounter such monsters as Rhuk, Pit Fiend and Lich.

 

That's why it's optional. (It's certainly doable; how frustrating it is seems to vary from player to player.)

 

What happens with the items afterwards if I replace Jan with Imoen? Will Jan's items still be available later?

 

All the items you had at time of capture by Irenicus get moved to a box in Irenicus's study (and are accessible before you have to have the showdown with him). Rearranging your party won't make any difference to this.

[PetrusOctavianus]

In Spellhold, after the Maze, when fighting Lonk the Sane he summons to Pit Fiends, which causes some problems since the cutscene starts after his death, not after the combat.

 

Having trouble with the fight against Irencus. First time I played the battle I defeated him, but the game crashed when the assassins were to appear. Second time, Irenicus cast Stone to Flesh on my character *after* his speech and it was Game Over.

On successive tries some of my allies turn hostile after a while. One of those that didn't turn hostle (I think it was Dradee) summoned a Glabrezu that turned hostile (because of no Prot Evil, I guess). The Death spell is supposed to kill summoned critters instantly, but did not work against the Glabrezu.

I've spent several hours on this battle now...

[Demivrgvs]

The Death spell is supposed to kill summoned critters instantly, but did not work against the Glabrezu.

Fiends are not summoned but gated, thus they are immune to Death Spell. The same is true for (Fallen) Devas/Planetars and for Djinn/Efreet too with SCS (with or without SR).

[PetrusOctavianus]

The Death spell is supposed to kill summoned critters instantly, but did not work against the Glabrezu.

Fiends are not summoned but gated, thus they are immune to Death Spell. The same is true for (Fallen) Devas/Planetars and for Djinn/Efreet too with SCS (with or without SR).

 

Ah...so many technicalities. Hard to keep track of it all.

[PetrusOctavianus]

CHAPTER 5:

 

Calls for Help not working in House of Jae'llat. Could have been a really epic battle...

 

Kuo-Toans at the bridge in the SE part of the Underdark have the same problem.

 

Drow Priestesses hardly cast any spells, just a few harmless Chants and Defensive Harmony. No Hold Person or other spells that ruin your day.

[DavidW]

CHAPTER 5:

 

Calls for Help not working in House of Jae'llat. Could have been a really epic battle...

 

Kuo-Toans at the bridge in the SE part of the Underdark have the same problem.

 

Drow Priestesses hardly cast any spells, just a few harmless Chants and Defensive Harmony. No Hold Person or other spells that ruin your day.

What: drow priestesses in general don't cast effective spells?

[Guest Guest_Loz_*]

Actually i've noticed less than optimal scripting in priests aswell, particuarly high level ones. Although considering priests are less common and less of a threat than mages it is not that noticeable. Their spell selections indeed seem somewhat unvaried, lower level ones seemed to focus very heavily on unholy blight, which is an amazing spell, but some low level disabling thrown in there too might make for more variety. The biggest problem i noticed was that ALL the high level ones seemed to favour the spell 'aerial servant' over absolutely anything else. Even the priests that were supposedly on the epic level spell list seemed to be casting aerial servant over anything else. There are better summoning spells for clerics, and in general it is suprising that level 7 spells were not seen more often. Off-hand i remember a few creeping dooms and sendais fallen deva, but that is about it. Earthquake, Gate, Firestorm, natures beauty, creeping doom, greater earth elemental, unholy word and the symbols are all good spells, it would be nice to see more of them. And then there are the powerful epic spells too(particuarly the summons).

[Guest!]

Actually i've noticed less than optimal scripting in priests aswell, particuarly high level ones. Although considering priests are less common and less of a threat than mages it is not that noticeable. Their spell selections indeed seem somewhat unvaried, lower level ones seemed to focus very heavily on unholy blight, which is an amazing spell, but some low level disabling thrown in there too might make for more variety. The biggest problem i noticed was that ALL the high level ones seemed to favour the spell 'aerial servant' over absolutely anything else. Even the priests that were supposedly on the epic level spell list seemed to be casting aerial servant over anything else. There are better summoning spells for clerics, and in general it is suprising that level 7 spells were not seen more often. Off-hand i remember a few creeping dooms and sendais fallen deva, but that is about it. Earthquake, Gate, Firestorm, natures beauty, creeping doom, greater earth elemental, unholy word and the symbols are all good spells, it would be nice to see more of them. And then there are the powerful epic spells too(particuarly the summons).

Nature's Beauty, Creeping Doom and Conjure Earth Elemental are Druid only (which reminds me to list Sendai as a cheater...). I agree Unholy Word should be used more, 50% spell failure on all spellacasters would make a lot of difference. Holy Word usually fills up all my L7 slots. Barring Devas, I don't think there are any better summons than Aerial Servant and generally I find it more annoying to be on the receiving end of Unholy Blight than, say, Hold Person.

[PetrusOctavianus]

generally I find it more annoying to be on the receiving end of Unholy Blight than, say, Hold Person.

 

My guys can take some damage from UB, but a successful Hold Person can drop a character's HP from 150 to 0 in verys hort time if there are lots of enemies pounding on him. Personally I always fear spells that incapacitate or charms my own guys more than pure damage spells, unless we are talking about several Horrid Wiltings in a row.

[Guest Fennek]

Calls for Help not working in House of Jae'llat. Could have been a really epic battle...

 

Kuo-Toans at the bridge in the SE part of the Underdark have the same problem.

 

Drow Priestesses hardly cast any spells, just a few harmless Chants and Defensive Harmony. No Hold Person or other spells that ruin your day.

 

I noticed the same (although almost one year ago...). It might be possible that SCSII does not change the spellbooks of guys added in by Improved Battle (and only Improved Battles+SCSII-drow component together make House Jae'llat a 20 healing-potion-fun-event-with-spiders...) that good. A drow F/M was hitting Kelsey with his staff all the time instead of casting spells... The drow in the east did not join the batte (what actually was not that bad, since in that way some were still there to protect the matron mother...). And the arena-battles, too, were not that impressive.

[PetrusOctavianus]

Probably my last post for a while...

 

In Chapter 8 the Doppelgangers don't have their ScS abilities.